Pricing Analyst

Company overview

Markel Corporation (NYSE – MKL) a Fortune 500 company with over 60 offices in 20+ countries, is a holding company for insurance, reinsurance, specialist advisory and investment operations around the world. It is the ultimate holding company for Markel International (MINT).

MINT underwrites a diverse portfolio of casualty and marine insurance and reinsurance business on a world-wide basis. In each of these markets we seek to provide quality products and excellent customer service so that we can be a market leader. Our financial goals are to earn consistent underwriting profits and superior investment returns to build shareholder value.

MINT operates in the Wholesale insurance market, via the Lloyd’s platform in London. It also operates in Commercial SME markets, through the National Markets division, with offices in the UK, Canada and Europe.

Find out more by visiting our website: www.markel.com/insurance/international

Department & Role Overview

Markel Europe writes business through offices in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. The Technical Pricing function supports the underwriting of this business through the development of pricing tools, performing detailed modelling on claims and exposure data, producing management information and portfolio management. This newly created role will focus on supporting diverse product lines across Europe to drive our growth ambition of doubling in size by 2025, whilst maintain underwriting profitability.

The team currently consists of one Qualified Actuary and one Senior Data Scientist, with the ultimate reporting line going through the Managing Director for the Netherlands. The team is embedded within the business and works closely on a day-to-day basis with expert underwriters, claims handlers and management. This close interaction is key to delivering detailed solutions quickly, to the people that need them.

This structure is replicated in the UK and Canada operations, with technical pricing expertise also embedded in those businesses. Further support is provided by the MINT Actuarial team in London, which consists of 30 individuals working across pricing, business planning, reserving, commutations, capital modelling, regulatory reporting, bad debt calculations and catastrophe management. Markel rely heavily on actuarial input in all aspects of the financial management of the business.

As we expand across Europe, we will be looking to continuously improve upon our existing pricing methodologies, which have proven successful to date. This role will be suited to a creative and curious thinker, keen to explore the use of modern technologies in insurance (such as R, Python and Azure), and investigating modelling techniques, from Natural Language Processing to Hierarchical Bayesian Models and Neural Networks. The ability to build reproducible workflows and assist in the design of data pipelines will be important for the team’s ability to support Markel’s growth ambitions.

Data wrangling skills, along with some knowledge of SQL, are also desireable for this role. A solid understanding of statistics is also key – the candidate could potentially have a background in statistics, actuarial science or data science. They will have sufficient experience to work independently and collaborate with multi-displicinary teams.

On a day-to-day basis, key tasks will include assisting with individual risk pricing, development and maintenance of pricing models, portfolio management, profitability analysis and the production of management information across the European business.

Duties and Accountabilities

Pricing

• Assist in the pricing of specific risks according to Markel underwriting guidelines, and support underwriting strategy across NM Europe
• Review rates and manuals on selected product lines as requested by underwriters and management
• Maintain and develop new and existing rating engines, including exploring new rating factors
• Researching and proposing new pricing techniques and methodologies, continuously seeking to improve the quality of the Technical Pricing output
• Work with claims handlers to understand our claims experience and how this impacts our premium rating
• Work with underwriters on new product development, actively build relationships with underwriters and seek areas where the data led analysis can add value

Data & Analytics

• Assessing and improving the data quality produced by the local offices for use by central functions
• Researching & implementing solutions to improve the data & analytics capabilities in Europe
• Working with data scientists and data engineers to develop automated workflows
• Staying up to date with the latest techniques applicable to our business

Profitability | Portfolio Analysis

• Developing portfolio management tools (e.g. dashboards | data visualisations) and key metrics to enable data driven decision making.
• Provide analysis for management to assist them in formulating their strategy on specific lines of business.
• Produce regular reports on key pricing metrics, e.g. rate adequacy and rate change. Liaising with underwriters and reporting on any trends or observations.

Technical Skills/Knowledge/Experience

The successful candidate will:

• Have completed a numerical Bachelor’s degree with a classification of 2:1 or above, or equivalent.
• Have at least three years of work experience – experience of a European general insurance market is an advantage
• Have detailed knowledge of the industry standard software tools, in particular Microsoft Excel, VBA and SQL
• Have some experience in (or willingness to learn) one or more of the following: R, Shiny, Python, Git, Linux, Azure, PowerBI, Docker
• Be comfortable in asking for help, enjoy sharing their expertise, and be excited to learn from their colleagues
• Will display excellent analytical and decision making skills, and the ability to communicate technical concepts to a non-technical audience
• Actively keep knowledge and skills up-to-date through courses and seminars
• Be fluent in English, other European languages are an advantage

Behavioural Competencies

Organisational behaviours

The successful candidate will:

• Demonstrate dedication to the organisation, team and role
• Build and maintain relationships with colleagues
• Focus on personal development and maintaining levels of knowledge and expertise
• Be an efficient and effective department member and participate fully to achieve department goals
• Be able to network internally and externally to acquire and implement knowledge
• Continuously seek improvement to achieve higher levels of efficiency, customer service and effectiveness
• Recognise the importance of order and clarity in the workplace and the presentation of work
• Possess the initiative to work independently and have the confidence to take ownership for decisions made

Role-specific behaviours

The successful candidate will:

• Display excellent analytical skills, curiousity and strong investigative skills
• Maintain a high level of accuracy in their work
• Focus on service delivery for key stakeholders
• Be self-motivated and able to work on their own initiative
• Have well-developed communication, presentation and interpersonal skills in order to interact well both within the team and with underwriters and other collaborators

Markel Competencies

Pursuit of Excellence

• Consistently provides quality work products
• Adapts behaviour to reflect the style of others to foster effective working relationships
• Finds the most efficient and practical means of overcoming challenges

Customer Focus

• Actively looks for solutions to customer problems
• Seeks to further knowledge of customer needs
• Builds relationships with customers and responds to needs by demonstrating tact, empathy and professionalism

Business Results

• Seeks the best and most direct option to accomplish tasks
• Demonstrates effective organisation skills
• Applies logic and draws accurate conclusions from information

Collaboration

• Helps others succeed
• Approaches change in a positive manner
• Listens for and acts on key information

Strong Foundations

• Holds self and others accountable to ethical standards
• Takes ownership and accountability for own development
• Shows accountability and resilience in achieving goals

Markel celebrates the value of a diverse workforce that brings experience and expertise from a wide variety of backgrounds and life circumstances. Whatever your background, if you feel you meet the requirements of this role then we want to hear from you.

For application information please visit www.markel.com/insurance/careers-at-markel   

We want to ensure that you have a positive experience applying for a role at Markel and are able to perform at your best. If there are any adjustments we can reasonably make to ensure that the process is accessible for you at every stage please telephone us on +44 (0)20 7953 6873 or email recruitment@markelintl.com.